topic I need ambient light in lightworks in Visualization

I need ambient light in lightworks

Anonymous — Thu, 11 May 2023 12:25:54 GMT

I am working on 7 interior renderings for a presentation of a house to a client and I am having problems in light works getting the ambient light to light up the rooms, my ceilings are white, but they look black, I have spot lights located, so everything looks lit, except for my ceilings, I tried changing the ambient light, I set general lights inside the rooms at floor level, ceiling level and in the middle, I've change the size and angle of the lights, but with mixed results

Its my first time using light works for interiors and it is driving me nuts, can somebody guide me to obtain more natural light inside the rooms, I would really appreciated

Luis

Re: I need ambient light in lightworks

Ben Odonnell — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 07:10:09 GMT

Luis,
Try using the camera light as well, found under render settings. It should give you more ambient light in your scene.

HTH.
Cheers.
Ben

Re: I need ambient light in lightworks

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 07:24:47 GMT

Ben wrote:
Luis,
Try using the camera light as well, found under render settings. It should give you more ambient light in your scene.

HTH.
Cheers.
Ben

Thanks Ben, I am using the camera light at 30%, ambient at 60 and sun at 80%, although I have been changing this numbers to get results, I even added some window lights rotated at 90 deg. and it helped, but not enough, any other suggestion? I really appreciate it, my deadline is tomorrow night

Re: I need ambient light in lightworks

Ben Odonnell — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 08:27:13 GMT

Luis,
Are you using the Lightworks light objects? If so you can set their height in degrees individually.

Try lowering the light angel and see if that helps.

Cheers.
Ben

Re: I need ambient light in lightworks

Dwight — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 14:51:00 GMT

Don't use the camera light.

For brighter ceilings, shine a window light upward from head height.
Also, Lightworks has a quirk that white surface [undersides] are unreasonably dark. I made a high reflection white material for ceilings to combat this problem.

Re: I need ambient light in lightworks

Dwight — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 14:52:35 GMT

and it doesn't hurt to add 20% actual ambient light from the photorendering dialog box.

BTW - in the ArchiCAD sun dialog, be sure that the archicad sun is set to white and ambient is slightly cool.

Re: I need ambient light in lightworks

Ben Odonnell — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 15:12:39 GMT

Dwight wrote:
Don't use the camera light.

How come?

Cheers.
Ben

Re: I need ambient light in lightworks

Dwight — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 15:55:25 GMT

Well, okay. Some guys might, but it is a crude tool for architectural visualization where some nod to realistic illumination is made.

Light emanating from the viewpoint is like a flash from a camera.
It is not environmental and looks cheap. Cheapandnasty. On the Atkinson scale of rendering sophistication, it is at the bottom of the "Mullet" range.

In cinema, the camera light is used for frontal close to medium shots in difficult light to fill actors faces. Most memorably, in the harsh Monument Valley during one of John Wayne's movies, they used a diffuse panel to fill his craggy visage, especially his deep eye sockets.

Recently, camera light was used in the film "Little Nicky" where Nicky visits three angels [light angel - a wonderful typo: like Tinkerbelle] in a polyester fibrefill "heaven." Everything needed a soft etheral quality so they used a circular array of those special high frequency fluorescents that are so popular for soft lighting, particularly in the exceptional film "Gummo," notable for its soft light.

Re: I need ambient light in lightworks

Dwight — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 16:08:23 GMT

In case you think I am being too hard on the camera light method of rendering, it does have its uses. Here's a photo of the class at my last camera light seminar to really express how I feel about this tool.

Re: I need ambient light in lightworks

Karl Ottenstein — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 17:07:25 GMT

I won't disagree with the master (completely), but I do think the camera light has its uses. Beyond mining, night-skiing, and night-time mountain ascents. 😉

For example, if you are not creating production level renderings, and do not want to take the time to place meaningful lights in a large, evolving structure: the camera light allows at least something to show up if you do a quick interior render. Suppose all you want to know is how the sunlight falls inside a room ... perhaps in a sun animation even ... and don't really care that the room looks nice: the camera lamp at least lets you see the interior so that you're oriented.

A very low camera light setting for a fill light, when directional lights are to the side (like the fill-flash that Dwight mentions) is another use.

But, for beautiful renderings, listen to Dwight and buy his book. 😉

Karl

Re: I need ambient light in lightworks

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 22:34:55 GMT

Dwight wrote:
Don't use the camera light.

For brighter ceilings, shine a window light upward from head height.
Also, Lightworks has a quirk that white surface [undersides] are unreasonably dark. I made a high reflection white material for ceilings to combat this problem.

Thanks Dwight, I took out the camera light and used a window light but just above floor level, and it looks much much better now without those dark black ceilings, I incrreased the ambient light and changed the ceiling material

It still looks a bit gray instead of white, but it is much better, especially for being my first rendering

Re: I need ambient light in lightworks

Dwight — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 22:46:51 GMT

If you are having trouble with surfaces being flat and grey, it is that the surface needs more responsiveness to the light "energy" - something to look at.

Add a little noise and texture to the surface.

Add a little color to the surface - yellow or pink.

Dial up increased diffuse and specular reflectivity.

Can you please post your result?

Re: I need ambient light in lightworks

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Feb 2005 06:20:56 GMT

Dwight - has your book been released?

Re: I need ambient light in lightworks

Dwight — Fri, 11 Feb 2005 07:29:46 GMT

No. It is still in the joint. Parole hearing in March.

Re: I need ambient light in lightworks

Anonymous — Sat, 12 Feb 2005 19:54:14 GMT

Dwight wrote:
No. It is still in the joint. Parole hearing in March.

In your book, do you explain concept and show how to acomplish things by examples or is it more like a bible eg. "if you do it like this you get this"

I already bought it, so it doesn't really matter, I'll find out when I read it

What do you think about that rendering program, MAXWELL?

Re: I need ambient light in lightworks

Dwight — Sat, 12 Feb 2005 20:11:24 GMT

Thank you for your support in buying the book. I guess that I will have to write it.

So many books are made to sell paper. Beautiful and expansive, there's not much content. And you dished out $75.00.

I'm doing this book - without any subsidy - for our community and it is intended to do three things thoroughly:

1: Be a bible - Whereas the real bible tries to show how to live a good life and avoid sin, my book will help you smite bad taste and stupid errors, avoiding taste crime.

2: Be an experiment - Show how to develop lighting schemes incrementally, o that adults with aptitude [or not] can follow along and get the principle of the lighting strategy. So you get he finished model with all the lights and you get the step-by-step [including my mistakes] process of developing a material or a lighting scene.

3: Be a technical reference: Since the manual is poor - and evasive - on practical issues, it will show how lights work in detail. For reference, indeed, but more to convey the principle of how the metaphor works.

While my first book had one motto: "A picture is just a bunch of dots," designed to eradicate jargon, the new book, while more narrowly focused, has a new cynical tag line to drive it: "It's all crap!!!" [under review] or: "It's a trick!" [could apply to Valentine's Day, and love in general, but in this case, only to anything that happens inside a computer.]

We are getting closer to printing, with a target of April. The book will be US$90.00 in America and €75.00 in Europe. Shipping included for pre-orders. PAYPAL to: dwight_atkinson[at]telus.net [replace "[at]" with"@" to help defeat the robots]

MAXWELL RENDERER MAJORING IN MEDICINER: looks like lots of fun, if you were intent on introducing a new renderer it has to be great, but for ArchiCAD users, lack of integration is always a barrier - it means a time investment to transfer and interact. Remains to be seen if it has the silver hammer or not.

Re: I need ambient light in lightworks

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 17:00:30 GMT

Here are two rendering for a project i am doing right now.
Everything is done in Archicad. Exported in 3ds. Rendered in Maxwell.
Time from exporting till press render in Maxwell 3-5 minutes (very very easy).

{i know the grass is awfull but there are 3 options for it . Fake it in photoshop, fake it using displacement maps,or create it in 3d. The first is for a final rendering,the third needs another computer and maxwell does not support displacement maps in this version)

Any comments welcomed

Re: I need ambient light in lightworks

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 17:01:40 GMT

and the second one

Re: I need ambient light in lightworks

Dwight — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 17:13:41 GMT

How do YOU feel about these?

Re: I need ambient light in lightworks

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 17:26:05 GMT

I like the second one very much. You can even see the caustics from the railing. But i would like your opinion very much. Not about the model but about the rendering